I’m cleaning out the bathroom cupboards. As I type this, I’m sitting on the bathroom floor looking at a small blue Cooper bag. It says ‘Barbados’ on the zipper end sides, underneath the ‘Cooper’ name and logo. It’s a miniature of a duffle bag and for decades it was my travel toiletry bag when I went on trips. I got it while living in Barbados and it is over 50 years old now. I haven’t used it in almost a decade and while it has held up fairly well, it is old and looks dirty. It’s time to throw it out.
My two eldest sisters, also born in Barbados, both had one as well. Mine was blue, theirs were red and green. I’m not sure they lasted 5 years for them, much less 50. Cooper was not the name brand anyone identified with back then. I think those were Adidas, Nike, and Puma, in that order, and maybe Fila as a close 4th. But I was not someone who bought into the trends… because I was nerdy, not cool, and I liked my little Cooper bag.
I can’t share a specific memory of using it, I just know that it has been a trusted travel companion for most of my life and I find it hard to let it go. The garbage bag is waiting, I’m hesitating. It logically makes no sense to keep it. I’ll never use it again. I won’t. And yet it’s so hard to say a final goodbye.
How many things do we hoard, that we cherish in a way that makes us want to hold on to it, to withhold it from a beckoning garbage dump? Not because it doesn’t belong there, on the contrary, we know that’s where it belongs. But this item, whatever it may be, is a piece of our past, a relic that ties us to our memories, a keepsake to remind us of who we knew, what we did, and ultimately who we are.
Some items will stay as long as we have room, but today I say goodbye to my Cooper bag. It doesn’t have a nostalgic hold on me anymore. 50 years is long enough. A final farewell and into the garbage bag it goes, never to be seen again.
